In Hong Kong, where a sizeable section of the city's poor end up living in coffin homes (bed-sized "tenements" with just room enough to sit up), it is no surprise the dead would have it harder. The agony of waiting to find a final resting place could be as prolonged as that for a residential unit in public housing.

The city's dead are in competition with the living for space. Even as Hong Kong's cemeteries and columbaria run out of space - except perhaps for the very rich buying their way into exorbitantly-priced private facilities - citizens steadfastly resist building more of these, primarily for fear of bad feng shui. Time and again they have succeeded in putting the government's plans to build one more columbarium in the neighborhood on hold.

The tension between the living and the dead is not apparent in these images though. Shot on Oct 21, when the Chinese visited the resting places of their dear departed to observe Chung Yeung Festival, these pictures exude a vibe of peaceful co-habitation. Columbaria, cemeteries and residential estates appear like bands in a landscape. The transition is smooth. In the world view of the Dutch graphic artist M.C. Escher, the headstones, arranged in rows on a terraced hill, could have morphed from the tall, rectangular striated residential blocks in the background.

One more reminder that the dead remain a part of our lives, whether or not we want them in our backyard!

basu@chinadailyhk.com

Apartment blocks looking out on Tseung Kwan O Chinese Permanent Cemetery accentuate the proximity of the living and the dead.

A part of the Kowloon cemetery where the deceased get a slightly more elaborate memorial than many can afford or find.

A lone mourner on remembrance day, making her way through the graves at the Hong Kong Chinese Christian Churches Union Cemetery in Kowloon.

Public housing blocks make for a colorful background to the row of headstones in the Hong Kong Chinese Christian Churches Union Cemetery, Kowloon.

A security guard watches over the columbaria at the Hong Kong Chinese Christian Churches Union Cemetery in Kowloon.

A man takes a moment to remember a deceased family member at the columbaria.

(HK Edition 10/23/2015 page11)